


34:  A Matter of Time

by light_source



Series: High Heat [34]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 23:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>-  I woulda put my hand in the fire for you.  And you traded me quicker and meaner than Billy ever traded anybody.  And now you're telling me maybe you made a mistake?</p>
            </blockquote>





	34:  A Matter of Time

**Phoenix  
February 2008**

A sudden knot in his calf muscle, Jesus _fuck_ it hurts, drags Zito up to the surface.   Sputtering, sucking air, he shakes the hair out of his face.

He rolls off Haren and curls onto his back, kneading his foot, pushing and pulling toe to heel like a ballerina breaking in a toe shoe.   As he works it, he realizes how cold the big room is, and how empty. A trickle of sweat crawls from his ear down his back.

Haren, his breath rough, throws his arms out to his sides, his hands clutching at nothing, as Zito sits up, hugging his bent knee and rocking back and forth on the rug.

\- Cramp?

Zito nods, not trusting his voice.

Haren groans softly.  His eyes closed, he grinds the back of his head into the carpet.

Zito pulls his heel to his crotch, straightening his back and leaning forward as the muscle uncoils itself.

It takes as long as it takes.  His body won't be hurried.

\- So what's changed, Danny?   Barry asks finally, not ready to look up. - Tell me what's different.

Nothin', says Haren slowly.  Nothin'.  That's the problem. I just can't make myself leave this behind.

\- _This?_ says Zito almost belligerently.

Haren sits up, knees bent forward in front and his arms angled out behind him.   His long black hair's sticking out sideways and matted from thrashing against the rug.   Zito notices that one eye's drooping like it always does when he's tired.

\- You, Haren says.  - I figured it'd fade - this thing. With you.

Zito, who fights to keep his expression blank, can look at him now.

\- I mean, fuck it, you know what I mean, that didn't come out right.  It was good with you, Zeets.   I never had better.  You know yourself.  I can't lie about shit like that.

\- And I just shut out all the crap I knew about Billy and what'd already gone down.  Mulder.  Huddy.  At first I didn't figure you were next.  I sure as fuck didn't think _I_ was.   And then, when we all knew you were gone, I panicked.  For like three or four months I didn't know who I was.

\- And I guess in the back of my mind I always kinda had this other idea of myself.   The dad thing, Haren says, swallowing, - and there's part of me still does.

\- It's not that things aren't good, Danny continues, his voice a thin line. - I love her and everything, Jessica, she's awesome.   And being a dad's one of the best things that's ever happened to me. To tell the truth, I was kinda dreading the baby for awhile there, but now I'm thinking about him all the time. You know how it is. 

He looks up at Zito, who's looking down at his own outspread hands that are clasping the soles of his feet together in a stretch.

\- I went out a couple days ago and got him one of those play-sets, says Haren. - One a those plastic orange and yellow thingies - you seen ‘em.   He tilts his head towards a big chipboard-reinforced cardboard box that's shoved up next to the sliding glass doors on the other side of the dining room.

Studying Haren, Zito's suddenly seized by resentment.

He resents that eventually there'll be a dining-room table in this room where the Harens'll have Thanksgiving and Christmas and parties for the kids' birthdays.   That every year there'll be a family portrait with a crinkly-blue background and the gold stamp of the photo studio in the corner.

And right now he resents that Haren's eyes are even bluer than he remembers, cool and milky against the bruised-grey shadows of his eye sockets.  That there's new lines on Danny's face, lines that mark the way he scowls and squints, lines that ought to make him look old and used-up.  Zito hates the way those lines are having precisely the opposite effect on him; they just make Haren more dangerous, more off-limits, more irresistible than ever.

Haren's sitting there like a kid who knows he's in trouble, fingers knitted over his knees.

\- I'm tryin' to do the right thing, Zeets, he says. - I just don't know what it is.   And fuck it, Barry, I can't stop thinking about you.

Zito tries to tune out the way his heart's slamming in his ears.  He knows what a bad idea it is to go down this road.

\- And now? asks Zito. - So what are you doing now, Danny?

He looks up and their eyes lock.

- _You motherfucker,_ says Zito so quietly that Haren almost can't hear him.  - You know damn well I was gone on you from the start.  I woulda put my hand in the fire for you.  And you traded me quicker and meaner than Billy ever traded anybody.  And now you're telling me maybe you made a mistake?

\- Or maybe you just want something on dirty on the side? he continues, liking the look of shock that crawls onto Haren's face.  - A looser buckle for your leash?

He rises to his knees and grabs Haren by the neck.  Danny's hair's meshed in his fingers and he doesn't care if it hurts.  He hauls Haren forward.   When their mouths touch Haren's pushing back, resisting, but there's something about Zito's anger that softens him and soon he's right there, like he's a man dying of thirst and Zito's something cold and wet.

Zito knows it, and he knows exactly how to hold Haren there for a good long time. Long enough to make him remember.

And then, without warning, Zito pushes Haren away roughly, shoving him back onto his haunches. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, Zito scrambles to his feet.

\- It's all about you, isn't it, Danny? he says, his hand on the front-door latch that's so new it's still sticky with tape from the box.  - It's all about you.

Outside in the car, even, his heart's still pounding in his throat.

It takes Zito half an hour to find his way out of the snaking ‘terraces' and cul-de-sacs of Danny's subdivision.  Partly because he can't remember what streets got him there.   And the stucco-sided houses all look the same, each driveway edged with fake brick and each yard planted with two guywired saplings that look like they've been staked out to die in the desert.

//

**Renton, Washington  
April 2003**

How things had turned out with Brandon had started with an envelope.

A bunch of out-of-state D1 baseball programs had been courting Tim that year, Louisiana and Wichita and USC and even Fresno State ( _like they had a chance_ , Tim's dad had said). Brandon had decent offers from Oregon and UNLV. That spring, in both households, it seemed like every week had brought another flurry of dinnertime phone calls and more glossy packets to add to the haystack on the kitchen counter. Brandon'd even picked up a sponsorship from Ecco. The corner of his closet was stacked thigh-high with unopened boxes of golf shoes and packets of cleats.

But without ever actually talking about it, they'd assumed they'd both go to the University of Washington, where every Renton kid who wasn't accepted at MIT or enrolling in beauty school dreamed of going.  Like high school but a thousand times better, they'd already heard about it.  There'd be coaches, a whole entire athletic staff, to run interference against their parents and their professors.  Freshman year they'd live in the brand-new Field House complex, jocks only, where you can roll right out of bed into the locker room and half the time you don't have to go to class. Bong hits before breakfast and keg parties on the weekends.   And winters off - golf and baseball had almost exactly the same spring/fall schedule, something they'd both known without saying it.

In November, Tim had signed a letter of intent with the Huskies baseball program - his dad had made Coach K promise not to mess with Tim's mechanics.   UW's golf coach, young and crazy and a go-getter, had been chasing Brandon even before his senior-year average'd dropped to 71.  This guy Thurmond was a minor genius; he'd developed a reputation for getting amazing players from places like China, and the twelve of them, conscious of their specialness, called themselves The Disciples. Thurmond had snagged Brandon a cushy NCAA ride, tuition and room-and-board and travel expenses - the golf team didn't take buses most of the time, they _flew._

Tim's dad was always saying _keep your eyes on it cause it's moving, Timmy,_ and he was right; it was true about pretty much everything worth doing. So Tim's mind had been on his own prospects that April day at the start of sixth period, when Brandon'd passed him the envelope printed with the red block-letter S and a pine tree. Inside there was a thick packet of cream-colored paper folded in thirds. A computer printout was stapled to the last page, and business cards were tucked into the cut places on the shiny red card that held it all in place.

Mrs. Fletcher was writing on the blackboard, her stick of chalk clicking whenever she started a new stroke.

\- It's a full ride, Timmy, Brandon'd said in a stage-whisper that wasn't lost on anybody around them. - A fucking full ride. To _Stanford._ He'd held up both palms for a slap.

-When you and Tim are done with the high-fives, Brandon - Mrs. Fletcher's foghorn voice blasted from the front of the room, - be sure to let me know. In the meantime, she'd continued - that passage at the beginning of Chapter 6 is waiting. As is the rest of the class.

She'd pressed her skinny lips into a line and glared at them from underneath her eyebrows, still dark even though her hair was all whitey-grey.

Heads swiveled. All eyes were on them.

\- Technically it's ahigh-ten, Mrs. Fletcher, Brandon had said, with the smallest smile - when it's both hands.

Tim, whose mom would have killed him for talking that way to a teacher, had to stare hard at his copy of _East of Eden_ to keep from laughing while the guys in the back row guffawed and Brandon was smacking hands with Seb Wilfron.

The envelope had sat on Tim's desk till the bell rang, when Brandon'd snatched it up as he'd fled, dodging desks to evade Mrs. Fletcher, who was bearing down on him with that see-me-after-class look on her face. He'd slipped out the door before Tim could catch up with him.

It was better that way. Now it was just a matter of time.

//

 **Two years later  
** **Stanford University  
** **April 2005**

The fact that last year Tim had struck out 161 batters in 112 innings ought to be enough. That he'd been Freshman Player of the Year and PAC-10 Player of the Week and Pre-Season All-American ought to be enough, Tim thinks, to keep his hands from sweating and his ears from ringing as he's standing in the keycard-only entryway of Brandon's dorm feeling like an impostor.

It'd taken him almost an hour to find Rinconada Hall, wandering around the circular paths that wind through the eucalyptus groves that make Stanford look more like a hacienda than a university. He'd had to ask three different people for directions, including an old guy on a bike with his pant leg tucked into his sock who was probably a professor. Finally two students who were going somewhere near there had said ‘it's too hard to explain, just come with,' and they'd dropped him here at the door.

The entryway's intercom is broken - it's buzzing continuously and there's green and white wires hanging out of it - so he's glad to see two girls emerging from the elevator inside and walking towards the door. He arranges his face into a mask of indifference so they won't think he's a stalker or something.  Then he's amazed when one of them holds the door and smiles at him, nothing major, but a _where'd you come from? you're kinda cute_ smile that gives him a burst of energy as he takes the stairs two at a time.

The Dawgs are in Palo Alto for a four-game series against the Cardinal. Tim's starting Game 3, and this'll be the first time he and Brandon have seen each other in almost two years, since high-school graduation.

They hadn't planned it, and they'd never said goodbye. It had just happened that way. Like so many things that year, and since.

Tim had spent the summer after high school playing for the Seattle Studs, and Brandon'd headed down to Palm Springs for an internship at Shadow Hills. They'd texted each other a couple of times that summer, but their schedules had never quite matched up.

They'd missed each other at Thanksgiving and Christmas too. Brandon's absence in December had surprised Tim - he'd found himself checking his phone way too many times for a text - till he'd heard that Brandon's whole family had been invited down to Arizona for the holidays and he'd never been home at all.

It'd been the same thing the next year, only more commitments, more pressure for both of them.

But Tim hasn't forgotten Brandon.

It had been so easy for the way they'd known each other to turn into something else, something he had no name for.

He doesn't let himself think of it that way, though, except sometimes when he's drunk and by himself and the game he's pitched has gone his way.

//

\- Palo Alto's kinda like Redmond, says Brandon, - same Microsoft-y thing. No one's actually from here. It's all yuppies and Indian guys on H1 visas and five bucks for a coffee.  I heard there used to be a Walgreens on University, he says drily - but the City Fathers thought it was too utilitarian and somebody burned it down.

They're walking up University Avenue in the chill of the spring evening, hands in their pockets, back to campus where Brandon's got a six-pack of Molson in his dorm fridge. They'd gone out for Thai food - Brandon had ordered them something called Evil Jungle Prince. They'd finished it off with bubble tea, and Tim'd made Brandon laugh by saying it was like a tea latte with a shot of fish eyes.

As they watch the sunset pink the sky behind Hoover Tower and the satellite dishes on the hills, Tim realizes that for the first time in awhile he's feeling relaxed and happy. It's partly the food and the afterbuzz from his morning workout and partly because it's spring now, which he loves. But it's also because he's with Brandon. Tim's amazed at how he can be both things at once - the old friend so familiar that they finish each other's sentences, and this wordly new one who talks about Hegel and the return of the repressed and how the Google IPO changed everything.

When Brandon closes his dorm-room door behind them, his mouth's slightly open, like he's about to say something, but Tim doesn't give him a chance. He's been thinking about kissing Brandon all afternoon and all through dinner.

\- I'm glad you got a single, B, mumbles Tim, when they finally come up for breath, and they're peeling each other's clothes off so hard and fast that two buttons pop off Brandon's shirt.

They don't make it back downtown for the 9:30 movie.

//

They didn't make it to breakfast, either, but as Tim finds his way back to the Sunken Diamond, he doesn't really notice that his stomach's so empty it's folding in on itself.

He doesn't give a shit. Food, right now, just isn't important. He's still trying to haul his mind and body back to earth.

Lying next to Brandon on his narrow bed, skin to skin, in the warm light of the study lamp that Brandon had thrown a t-shirt over, he'd felt like life had spread itself out in front of him like a well-paved road with a fast car and plenty of trees to rest under.

There was Brandon's mouth, so familiar but so different from before, and the feel of his unshaven cheeks on Tim's skin, rough and insanely arousing because it wasn't exactly pleasure and it wasn't exactly pain. It was something else entirely, this night, fierce and intense like it had never been before.

And the amazing thing was how nothing had changed except where they'd wound up.  And that was something they could forget, at least for awhile.

 

 


End file.
